The end of Gaddafi is "a matter of days or weeks," says French minister.

247 – The 'day after' Libya without the presence of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi is already being prepared among the countries that make up the international military coalition attacking the country. "It will be a matter of days or weeks, not months," said French Foreign Minister Alain Juppé in Paris, regarding the liquidation of the dictator's armed forces. French fighter jets shot down a Libyan plane that was attempting to use airspace near Benghazi.

In Ankara, this Thursday the 24th, the Turkish government announced that command of all military operations in Libya, including air strikes, naval blockade, and even a possible land incursion into the country, will now be exercised by NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization), created after World War II and composed of 28 countries. The headquarters will be located in Naples, Italy, under the orders of an American general. The second-in-command will be from Canada. Turkey, which had resisted NATO's entry into the forefront of the war, accepted the change. The move is seen as preparation for the occupation of the country after the fall of the dictator. Europeans fear that Libya will be divided into two countries without Gaddafi's presence – Tripolitania (western) and Cyrenaica (eastern).

In Brussels, a European Union source, speaking to the newspaper El País, stated that they are already analyzing the possibility of using privileged interlocutors to dialogue with the Libyan opposition, a task that could fall to diplomats from Algeria, Syria, or Turkey. "Gaddafi is finished," the diplomatic source concluded. "What we don't know is when or how he will disappear."